5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week, Including Mike Kelley Movies

This week, a New York performer dances about growing up in the '80s, and two artists project images of pizza on carpet-covered triangles.

5. Collage in the window
Artist Kristin Cammermeyer, who cuts into walls with the nonchalance of someone cutting pictures from magazines and who has designed department store window displays, is spending four days on a three-dimensional, multimedia collage. She’s using material from performances that have taken place at Machine Project this past month. When she’s finished, Machine will host a party. The whole thing, the art and celebration, will be in the alt-space’s small, temporary front room and visible through the front window for anyone who would rather watch. 1200-D N. Alvarado St., Echo Park; Thursday, July 17, 8 p.m. (213) 483-8761, machineproject.com.

3. House on the move
Mike Kelley, the artist with a fantastic retrospective up now at MOCA, traveled up and down Michigan Avenue in Detroit in 2010, a little over a year before he died. He’d drive his “Mobile Homestead,” a sliver of a house on the bed of a truck, from one spot to another and talk to a dominatrix, a restaurant owner or a landlord. The resulting films are much more tender than — but as full of eccentricity as — so many of his artworks. Art Center is screening two of them. 1700 Lida St., Pasadena; Saturday, July 12, 11 a.m. (626) 396-2200,artcenter.edu.

2. Note passing
It's the 1980s and two 11-year-old girls from the Bronx are passing “sex-saturated” notes, trying to figure out what it means to be grown-ups and to have intense feelings. Dancer-artist Okwui Okpokwasili, who’s elegant and powerful to watch, wrote the story, drawing from Victorian novels and West African storytelling tradition. She performs on her own at the Highland Park Ebell Club. 131 S. Avenue 57, Highland Park?; Friday, July 17, to Sunday, July 19, 8:30 p.m.; $20. showboxla.org.

1. Carpet on wallsIn their current show, Animal Charm, a two-decade collaboration between artists Richard Bott and Jim Fetterley, built carpet-covered mounds, turned off the lights, then projected pulsing videos onto the carpet. The best work, Tapeto Mortale, is installed in the front room. It’s like rolling, carpeted, psychedelic colored hills are protruding from the back wall. 6086 Comey Ave.; through Aug. 9. (323) 965-2264, chinaartobjects.com.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the date of the Machine Project event. It is actually Thursday, July 17.